Tag Archives: featured

The Knight in White Flannels

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Great batsmen often suspend the reverted eye, the whooping past, and the anticipated future. They are wont to enter a timeless present, just perfect in their manner and idiom, and open a sphere that time could forget. Their generous art reminds us, in the process, its content, by what it does in us […]

Beyond The Placebo Effect

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Sir William Osler, a luminary of internal medicine, rightly said that one should treat as many patients as possible with a new drug while it still has the power to heal. This is because there is wisdom in it since most of us would also believe that the medicine prescribed for a given […]

The Growing Up Equation

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR It’s, to use a Dickensian phrase, the best of times, and the worst of times. And, as we navigate in our society where instinct is given a free ticket, we are paradoxically not willing to grow up. We are growing up, all right, in a way, but only as ‘half-adults.’ Besides, we are running […]

The Power Of Hope

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Hope insulates us against stress. It inspires us to overcome difficulties. It reduces the song of one’s burden — the excess baggage of surplus, negative emotions that we carry during tough times. It is not just that — when the going gets tough, the tough ‘get going.’ Everyone does that — in one way, or […]

Age No Bar

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR When Linus Pauling, the legendary chemist and two-time Nobel laureate, discovered that a specific heritable protein variation in a single component of haemoglobin protein complex resulted in sickle cell anaemia, it initiated a new era in biomedical sciences. Years later, the gene responsible for the haemoglobin variant was discovered — including an entire series […]

Bespoke Medicine

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR There was a time when modern medicine was primitive. There were no antibiotics, so every infection took its own course, leading to decline in health. Hypertension and diabetes were largely untreatable. X-ray was new, and remedies had changed but little from medieval times. No one ever embarked on the goodness of preventative treatment, […]

Waheeda: Born For The Role

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR When psychologist Abraham Maslow studied self-actualised individuals, it led him to the idea that such ‘stand-out’ individuals are above the pack, or a cut above the rest. And, that they are adept and skilful in surmounting numerous challenges of life and accomplishing their maximum potential through peak experiences. In the process, Maslow discovered […]

Biology Of Time

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR What has colour fluctuation in certain leaves got to do with the change of seasons? More than meets the eye and mind. The changes are collectively called biological rhythms — or, behavioural changes that may not be just passive responses to environmental variations. Such changes are driven by ‘endogenous oscillators,’ called biological clocks, […]

Cricket’s First Engineer

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR There was something special, also magical, about Farokh Maneksha Engineer. Picture this. His handsome face, his Brylcream-dotted mane, his aristocratic, yet well-grounded face, his conspicuous sideburns, the walk with great aplomb, the riveting style he embraced and diffused, the transcendent poise he echoed, the commitment, flair and flamboyance with which he draped his […]